Follow up on all the "Kindergarteners"

[poetic license]

We had an accelerated Kindy thread a while back, so I thought I'd post a follow up to see how everyone's year went!

 

We're planning to officially start "1st grade" and regular homeschooling come June. DS was in a private school for half days, but I've switched him to full day until school gets out so I get a nice long break before he's with me for good. :tongue_smilie:

 

I'm getting to know DS's learning style a little better--he picks up things in fits and starts. It will seem like he's not moving too fast for a little while, then suddenly he'll just jump in level.

 

I'm excited about his reading progress. He started the year at about the Frog and Toad/Early reader stage, and now he's devouring Roald Dahl & E.B. White.

 

Due to the half-days of school, I ended up doing not doing a full homeschool curriculum--mainly religious studies and math, with interest led science reading and some nature study thrown in here and there. I'm looking forward to start WWE and spelling this coming school year.

 

So how are all your kindergarteners doing?

 

And does anyone else feel like throwing their hands in the air at trying to find the right "grade level" for their asynchronous child? :confused:

[Crimson Wife]

DS did great with his "transition" year between K and 1st. He matured a lot over this past year and his writing improved tremendously as well. I probably could've promoted him to 1st back in January if we ran our school year Jan-Dec instead of Aug-Jul.

[SKL]

My kids are in full-day KG (not homeschooled). After the initial drama of getting their placement figured out, it's been pretty smooth sailing. My youngest is well ahead of her class in all academic areas, but as far as I can see, that has not been problematic. My oldest (October birthday) had me worried at the beginning with her vision issues, but she's done great, all things considered. She's ahead with reading but probably average in math (and I'm fine with that). Both girls have the temperament to succeed in the classroom environment, which is a blessing.

 

This summer they will keep sharp between summer day camp, evening/weekend lessons at home, and playing outside. First grade will be at a Lutheran school.

[blondeviolin]

Abby's my rising first grader.

 

Math: She's completed both MEP y1 and SM y1 and most of Miquon Orange and Red.

 

Unit Studies: She enjoyed FIAR well enough and we successfully rowed 19 books with a few unit studies thrown in (dinosaurs, weather, penguins, etc).

 

LA: Her decoding capability is much higher than her interest level. She flew through AAS 1 and half of 2 before we paused for the summer. She's been enjoying picture books a lot, which I'm okay with as they do have a higher reading level. She also began FLL 1 and is finding it really easy. She doesn't want to skip it, though, because she loves memorizing the poems. She asked if we could continue this through the summer. LOL

 

Our plans for next year include the typical WTM recommendations for first grade. I would let her accelerate through, but I've got her younger brother right behind her and he wants/needs to participate as well. She's okay hanging back and letting him tag along and I think it will make MY load easier right now.

[LisaKinVA]

Most of my 5yo issues stem from vision issues, and a complete lack of wanting to do anything other than play. She'll finish MM1 and abeka's grade 1 phonics. It's been easy, but she just can't seem to do more than 15 min of anything remotely academic. Next year we're adding FLL and WWE, with whatever she feels like participating in for science and history (with 3 older siblings, she gets a lot of exposure). I'm hoping once we identify the vision issue, some of her tiring out will improve.

[LittleIzumi]

On the old thread I had a K-age The Sponge (now officially in 1st instead) and a Pre-K-age The Drama who was beginning K work. They have both progressed nicely. Honestly, by the second half of this year we had so much socializing lined up that we barely had time to homeschool. (Twice-weekly preschool for The Drama, twice-weekly being a teacher's helper/mentor at preschool for The Sponge, one full day of charter school for the Sponge, four different playgroups that in happened weekly--usually attended three, science class for The Sponge, etc.) Since The Sponge really needs to get her work done by noon while she's mentally "here," all those morning times really, really cut into our homeschool. Those days we pretty much didn't HS. I'm changing a lot of that next year.

 

So, The Sponge switched from Singapore to MEP and Miquon and games, switched from ETC to Dancing Bears Fast Track, decided that she liked this reading thing finally :party:, moved along well in AAS, did a lot of logic, improved her up-to-10 facts a LOT with MathRider, did some fun unit studies, nearly finished BFSU, and really enjoyed her new science class. She catches bugs and keeps them in containers constantly. Right now there's a snail on the kitchen table in a dry aquarium. It likes our lettuce. The Sponge is also enjoying cursive much more than printing. Her math is totally asynchronous and is threatening to give me hives, but ah well. She's very recently been put on a tiny amount of Adderall in the mornings only for her severe ADD and it is helping SO much. She's still "her," very much so, but she can finally pull herself together enough to focus on a paper/book, to answer the questions and even move to the next question without me physically redirecting her to it at least three times per question. Yay!!!

 

The Drama finished MEP Reception and is working well in Y1. She switched from MFW K to AAR 1 and our unit studies. She wants to do more MFW K, though--she liked the little activities a lot. She's solid on CVC words, just needs practice for fluency. She's tagging along in science, is three pages from completing Lollipop Logic 2, and is writing fairly well. She honestly seems to be equally competent in every single area. I'm not used to that :tongue_smilie:. She is expanding her vocabulary as quickly as possible, which often throws me for a loop.

 

Next year The Drama will "officially" be in K, and will be working through MEP Y1, Lollipop Logic 3/First-time Analogies/Primarily Logic, AAR, AAS, and some me-designed world countries and cultures unit studies, plus our occasional Spanish and ASL.

Edited May 15, 2012 by LittleIzumi

[boscopup]

I posted to that thread as "doing K work". DS2 will be officially "K" next school year, but he's a November birthday, so he's been 5 for a while.

 

We've had HUGE progress this year, despite only doing school "when he wants to", which sometimes was every day and sometimes not at all for a few weeks. :)

 

Last fall, DS2 could count to 10, but not much past that. Today, he can add 30+31 in his head by thinking about the place value. He talks about tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, etc. Place value is deeply ingrained, much to my surprise. Seriously, 6 months ago, we were still dealing with "what is 23". He is also memorizing his addition and subtraction facts. I have no doubt he'll have them memorized by that infamous point in Singapore that says they should have them memorized (even if they don't really HAVE to by then ;) ). C-rods are our friends!

 

In reading, we're still plugging along. I've learned that my dad is not only a visual thinker (which I suspect DS2 is), but he's also mildly dyslexic. My dad is brilliant, and it has apparently not hurt him in his career as an engineer. I also learned that my dad didn't learn to read in 1st grade like they were supposed to in school, but when he did learn to read, he took off. I suspect that is what will happen with DS2. He can sound anything out, and he's starting to recognize the words without having to sound them out. I feel like we're getting close to taking off point, but just aren't quite there yet. Part of it may also be a confidence issue. He complained one day that he could "only read baby books". :( It doesn't help that his older brother reads several grade levels ahead of his age, and even his younger brother is starting to pick up on reading (he does great with Reading Eggs and truly is capable of blending and reading individual words, though he's nowhere near reading a book or anything). So DS2 is probably figuring out that this reading thing is not happening easily for him like it is for everyone else. I did tell him about his Grandpa though, and I think that helped. Grandpa is local, so they see each other often. :)

 

DS2 is continuing in speech therapy next year with the school system, and that's going well. Articulation wise, he is only still struggling with 'th' and 'v', and mostly he has to use visual cues for those sounds. I told the therapist that he also needs visual cues for 'm' and 'n' when reading, and those used to be sounds he mixed up in speech, and they have been corrected. She found that interesting. He also mixes up 'b' and 'd' in reading. I am going to get his eyes checked soon. I'm already a bit suspicious about vision because at the doctor's office when they did that basic quick eye chart test, he could only see the top 'E' when using one eye. He had to use two eyes to read any other lines. His vision was fine with two eyes, but that just seems really weird. I know my vision is obviously better with two eyes, but it's not THAT huge a difference, ya know? The doctor didn't say anything, but I'll make an appointment anyway.

 

Otherwise, we are still in neverending question land... although now that he knows we're working on question word order in speech, he purposely avoids questions by saying, "I don't know if..." :lol: I think he's a LOT smarter than he lets on sometimes. He often sounds like a much younger child when talking, but then the way he thinks and the things he thinks about... they make MY head hurt.

 

Anyway, we'll have our official "K" year this coming year, doing Sonlight P4/5 as our core, and going on into Singapore 1A/1B for math, continuing with Dancing Bears that we've been using recently (that's going well), and using the WRTR handwriting instructions for manuscript and cursive (he wants to learn both). He's so ready for Singapore 1A that he even started saying, "Let's fly," when talking about his K math. He says that when he wants to skip stuff (I had to ask what that meant). 6 months ago, he needed lots of repetition. Now, he's picking up the math incredibly quickly. I knew that math brain was in there. He gets it from both sides, so it was bound to be there somewhere! :D